Ethics reform is all the rage in Washington, but the public is
saying,
”
So what else is new?
”
A little more than half of all Americans, according to a
Washington Post poll, believe the problem of government corruption
is widespread, but a similar number also believes that members of
Congress are as honest as the average citizen.
By all means, drain the swamp, they seem to be saying, but that
putrid water will always end up somewhere.
Ethics reform is all the rage in Washington, but the public is saying, “So what else is new?” A little more than half of all Americans, according to a Washington Post poll, believe the problem of government corruption is widespread, but a similar number also believes that members of Congress are as honest as the average citizen.
By all means, drain the swamp, they seem to be saying, but that putrid water will always end up somewhere.
Ethics are useful guides along the straight and narrow path, but what most people really care about is a moral compass, without which any new ethics proposals are likely to wander off that path like so many lost Boy Scouts. Meanwhile, as Washington argues over how many lobbyists can dance on the head of a pin, average Americans continue to provide examples of moral courage.
Take the Reverend Joe Hoffman. Last Sunday Rev. Hoffman stood in his pulpit in the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Asheville, North Carolina, and declared that until gay marriage is made legal he won’t perform any marriages at all.
“When I sign that piece of paper for marriage, as an agent of the state, I give (heterosexual couples) about 1,100 rights and privileges that gay and lesbian couples do not get,” Hoffman told his congregation during his morning sermon. “I believe in equal rights for all people. As a minister, I was participating in a system that was unjust.”
Rev. Hoffman said his decision was personal and had nothing to do with the feelings of his congregation. Even though the 1 million-member United Church of Christ decided last year to support gay marriage, it was still a gutsy stance for a minister in the buckle of the Bible Belt.
About the same time, moral convictions led two unidentified doctors in California to refuse to take part in an execution by helping administer lethal drugs, resulting in the execution’s indefinite postponement.
The actions of these individuals, bucking prevailing sentiment over highly charged issues to stand up for principle, contrasts sharply with congressmen caught with their hands in the cookie jar. For all the Republican talk about morality in the last election, revelations about party corruption since then have refocused the meaning of “conviction” and served as a reminder that principled behavior is not a matter of partisan affiliation.
These revelations also suggest that the so-called culture war is really a war over a vision of morality. The front line in that war for liberals is not religion, as the right thinks, but the more mundane issue of how budget priorities reflect our values. To many, the posturing over ethics reform stands in stark contrast to the moral and financial bankruptcy of the Bush presidency and its congressional enablers.
Take for example the proposal in Bush’s 2007 budget to sell over 300,000 acres of public land, 85,000 of which are in California, to help balance the budget. The sale would net a paltry $1 billion, which could be recouped in a mere 10 days if Congress would simply let the Bush tax cuts expire rather than make them permanent.
It is immoral, in this view, to give tax breaks to the rich when we’re hemorrhaging over $400 billion a year in red ink and considering cutbacks in areas like the environment, education, housing, and Medicare.
And what are the hyperwealthy doing with their largess? According to a Jan. 13 New York Times story, many holders of these huge surpluses of private capital are buying mega-yachts, some costing hundreds of millions of dollars. Even President Bush has gotten some of that action. A year ago Congress appropriated $2 million to buy back the presidential yacht Sequoia, which had been sold off by President Carter in 1977.
Instead of 2006 becoming the Year of Ethical Tinkering, perhaps it should be the Year of Moral Reflection. It may be too much to hope, but a few politicians might learn to care about the least among us, about our health as well as our safety, and take real risks to do what is right. It took Ronald Reagan six years to utter the word “AIDS” in public. Maybe George Bush will finally say “global warming” and understand what’s at stake besides record oil company profits.
And perhaps moral courage will trickle up, even if the benefits of
Bush’s economic policies fail to trickle down.
